Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (play /ˈpiːtər ˈɪlɨtʃ tʃaɪˈkɒfski/); (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский;[a 1] tr. Pyotr Ilyich Chaykovsky) (May 7, 1840 – November 6, 1893[a 2]) was a Russian composer whoseworks included symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets, and chamber music. Some of these are among the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire. He was the first Russiancomposer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, which he bolstered with appearances as a guest conductor later in his career in Europe and the United States. One of these appearances wasat the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1891. Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884 by Tsar Alexander III, and awarded a lifetime pension in the late 1880s.

Although musicallyprecocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a musical career in Russia at that time, and no system of public music education. When an opportunityfor such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from where he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching he received there set him apart from composersof the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed. Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what hehad learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From this reconciliation, he forged a personal, independent but unmistakably Russian style—a task that didnot prove easy. The principles that governed melody, harmony and other fundamentals of Russian music ran completely counter to those that governed Western European music; this seemed to defeat thepotential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or from forming a composite style. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted...